The American populace loves their coffee. Most people begin their day with a cup of their favorite blend while others continue to partake throughout the day, commonly obtaining it from a their favorite “mom and pop” coffee roaster or a commercial vendor such as Starbucks®. However, of lately, many brew their own coffee using an individual brewing device such as a Keurig® brand coffee brewer. These allow for individual sized brewings using what have been come to be known as “k cups” or “coffee pods”.
Along with a populace that loves their coffee, come a segment of coffee aficionados. This breed of coffee drinker seeks specific coffee beans or coffee bean blends. The commercial coffee vendor market has rallied to meet this segment's demand, with most stores offering a plethora of coffee beans, however the selection of available coffee pods lags far behind. This is understandable, as to stock numerous blends of quantity boxed coffee pods takes up valuable store space. Thus, the coffee aficionado that relies on their individual brewing device has a rather limited selection.
This situation worsens when the coffee aficionado is at a location away from his individual brewing device or only has bulk brewing capabilities. Such an example would be rough woods camping. With the cost of these specialty beans as high as they are, no one wants to waste good coffee on the unappreciative or those with an undiscerning palate.
Another problem lies not with the coffee aficionado but rather with the small “mom and pop” coffee roasters. These entrepreneurs generally lack the equipment to pre package their coffees into pod format for their clients, and as such, loose this share of the market.
To date the commercially available coffee pods are made at a location remote from their point of sales and as such reflect a time lag between grinding and use. Further, these pods are prepared in common varieties by the larger coffee roasters. Often an aficionado of coffee has developed a taste for some of the more rare beans or even for a specific blend of beans. Neither of these are available in pod form. Complicating the issue, to make the pods affordable (since the price of commercially preparing these dramatically rises the cost of the coffee) they are packaged in large boxes, often in the 90 pod range. This, for many, takes months to go through and freshness becomes a taste issue.
Henceforth, a method of preparing small quantities of coffee pods that are blended to the consumer's taste from the bean or beans of their own selection, directly at the store or coffee roasters, would fulfill a long felt need in the coffee industry. This new method utilizes new technologies with newly developed devices in a unique and novel configuration.